Student/Faculty Accolades
by Chloë Moore ’24
MacSlams sent their competitive team to the Second Annual Midwest Poetry Mash-Up, where they competed against 7 other slam poetry teams over 2 days. MacSlams took home the win! Congratulations to Zari Baker ’27, Tommy Fowler ’25, Callisto Martinez ’26, Rue Musharu ’27, and Adrien Wright ’25. Endless thanks to the coaches, Natalie Kaplan ’17 and Ollie Schminkey ’16, as well as the incredible poets with whom they had the opportunity to share the stage!
Leah Wasson’s ‘25 paper, “This Masquerade is BYOD (Bring Your Own Disability),” has won a Gateway Prize for Excellent Writing in the Humanities Division. Congratulations!
English alumna Georgia Cloepfil will have her debut book, The Striker and the Clock: On Being in the Game published by Riverhead Books on July 16th! As she shared, the book “is many years in the making, it is a love letter to soccer and a study of time, bodies, ambition and transformation, among other things.” You can preorder the book here!
Four alumni are heading to grad school in the fall. Gianella Rojas is off to the University of Miami to pursue an MFA in fiction. Alyssa Cooke has been accepted into Oregon State University for an MFA in poetry. Kira Schukar has accepted an offer from the University of Chicago to pursue an MA in the Humanities. Alum Joe Petersdorf will be attending Columbia University for an MFA in poetry. Congratulations, everyone!
Birdie Keller ‘25, who has been teaching with Cow Tipping Press, celebrated the launch of the anthology of work created by their students, entitled The Forest is in a Woodhouse. The anthology was celebrated in an event on April 17th in collaboration with the Poets and Pints series.
Three English majors successfully defended their Honors theses. Zoë Roos Scheurman presented “Homemade Language, Conservative Fro-Yo, and Sci-fi Sloths: How speculative migration fiction confronts the ends of the world by challenging the nation-state.” Kendall Kieras spoke about their project, “‘The Abhorrent Condition’: Representation in Pro-Lesbian Pulps, 1952-62.” And Grace Killackey presented “Life and Letters of Ada E. Leslie: A Victorian Woman’s Story of Travel, Career, and Class Mobility.” Well done, everyone!
The band “Bad Bad Hats,” led by Macalester alum and current Visiting Assistant Professor Kerry Alexander, just released their 4th LP, a self-titled project composed largely of songs the band wrote over 2020-2021. They will be embarking on their first European tour later this year! Check out their music and tour dates here!
Professor Michael Prior’s poem “Diasporic” was published in the magazine Believer. You can check it out in the English office!
Macalester alum Ollie Schminkey ’16 will have their second full-length poetry collection, Where I Dry The Flowers, published by Button Poetry this summer. Join them and Kyle Tran Myhre, Zach Goldberg, and Tanesha Nicole to celebrate the release on Thursday, June 6th at 7:30 at the Strike Theater in Minneapolis!
Two Macalester alums have made a book called Batpuppy. Written by Katie Woodhouse ’21 and illustrated by Maggie Jaenicke ’21, it is a children’s book about a girl whose new puppy has a big secret: a pair of bat wings! You can order this charming book here!
A note from the author: this is the most incredible round of Accolades I’ve put together this year, and it has been such a delight to help celebrate all the wonderful things our students, faculty, and alumni are always accomplishing. A huge congrats is also due to everyone who completed a capstone, made it to graduation, got through finals, and just generally made our Department amazing this year! Thank you for letting me be a vehicle for all your wonderful goings-on.